As regards medical education, we know of two colleges, or, rather, of
one college and one hospital, in Boston, where education is given. There
is one in Springfield, and one in Philadelphia. We should be glad to get
more statistics of this kind; for Cleveland, where Dr. Zakrzewska took
her degree, is no longer open to female students, and Geneva is
contenting herself with the honor of having graduated Dr. Blackwell.
Nine women were graduated at the New-York Medical School for Women, in
February of this year. Professor Willis then stated that there are three
hundred female physicians in the country, earning incomes of from ten to
twenty thousand dollars.
There is a female medical society in London. This society wishes to open
the way for thorough medical instruction, which will entitle its
graduates to a degree from Apothecaries' Hall; and it offered lectures
from competent persons, in 1864, upon obstetrics and general medical
science. Madame Aillot's Hospital of the Maternity, in Paris, still
offers its great advantages to women; of which two of our countrywomen,
Miss Helen Morton and Miss Lucy E. Sewall, have taken creditable
advantage. They are both of them Massachusetts girls. Miss Morton is
retained in Paris, and Miss Sewall is the resident physician of the
Hospital for Women and Children, in Boston.
At present, to obtain thorough instruction in any branch, women are
obliged to pay exorbitant prices, and receive, as the results of their
training, but half-wages. In Boston, Dr. Zakrzewska has again
unsuccessfully asked permission to become a member of the Massachusetts
Medical Society. Many physicians, however, extend the fellowship which
the institution denies, and the "Medical Journal" expresses itself
courteously on this point. Efforts, sustained by the influential name of
the Hon. Charles G. Loring, are at this moment making to secure the
advantages of the Harvard-College lectures to women intending to become
physicians.[48]
In 1863, there existed in St. Petersburg a stringent regulation, which
prohibited women from following the university courses. A Miss K., who
had a decided taste for medicine, without the means to pay for
instruction, applied for such instruction to the authorities of
Orenburg. Orenburg is partly in Europe and partly in Asia, and its
territory includes the Cossack races of the Ural. These people have a
superstitious prejudice against male physicians, and are chiefly
attended in illness by sorceresses. Miss K. offered to put her medical
knowledge at the service of the Cossacks, and received permission to
attend the Academy of Medicine. The Cossacks promised her an annual
stipend of twenty-eight roubles; but, when she passed the half-yearly
examination as well as the male students, they sent her three hundred
roubles as a token of good-will!
In France, a Mademoiselle Reugger, from Algeria, lately passed a
brilliant examination, and received the degree of Bachelor of Letters.
She appealed to the Dean of the Faculty at Montpellier for permission to
follow the regular course, and was refused on account of her sex. She
then turned to the Minister of Public Instruction, who granted it, on
condition that she should pledge herself to practise only in Algeria,
where the Arabs, like the Cossacks, refuse the attendance of male
physicians. Unlike our Russian friend, she refused to give the pledge.
She threw herself upon her rights, and appealed in person to the
emperor. This was in December last, and I have not been able to find his
decision. It was doubtless given in her behalf; for Louis Napoleon will
always yield, as a favor, what he would stubbornly refuse as a right.
A female medical mission is to be despatched to Delhi, for the same
reason. The physicians sent out are,--